Segmented Mate Tea Cup

Made this Mate tea cup for a buddy of mine thats about to take a road trip out west. Mate is traditionally served in gourds but my friend thought it would be cool to have one made out of wood. We talked about the basic dimensions on what it needed to be and he gave me free reign on the design.

So this is what I came up with. It is my first segmented piece and im pretty happy with it for the most part. Each ring has 12 segments so in total the cup has 39 pieces and 6 different species of wood. I used Maple, blood wood and wenge for the rings then purple heart, peruvian walnut and osage orange for the base. Sanded to 320 and no finish.

This is a total experiment to see how something like this will hold up over time. I used titebond 3 and since its segmented there is very little end grain exposed to soak up liquid. With the relatively thick wall i think the chances are pretty good for it to last a long time. If not Ill just have to make another one haha. I did this instead of watching the Falcons lose this past weekend, time well spent in my opinion.